This probably sounds really obvious, but I underestimated how isolating even slight deafness can be.

Have a really nice chatty senior (70s) at my volunteering job who was very jovial with everyone, always cheered me up because I worry about the amount elder-loneliness in my town sometimes. He lost some of his hearing over the years, and even with decent hearing aids and people taking his hearing into account he participates much less in conversation during our breaks.

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nkrisc 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I can definitely believe it. According to every audiologist I’ve been to, my hearing is normal for my age, though on the lower end of the expected range for some frequencies.

However if I’m in a noisy restaurant it always seems like everyone else at the table can hold the conversation just fine but I can’t hear a damn thing they’re saying. It’s very isolating. I can’t understand how they do it.

My father uses hearing aids but even with them I can see him sort of just receding from a conversation sometimes.

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fwip 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Have you looked into auditory processing disorder? One of the main features is having difficulty locating or separating sounds, especially when there's several competing sounds.

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y1n0 10 hours ago | parent [-]

I have heard of it, but other than giving something a name, what can be done about it?

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fwip 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Having the label to look for helps you find people dealing with the same problem, and share tips.

Looking into it a bit, seems some people experience relief with low-gain hearing aids, and others find help with a variety of practice/training methods or coping techniques.

	▲	delecti 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Somewhat counterintuitively, I also find that earplugs help a great deal. I use Loop brand, but there are other comparable noise reduction earplugs. They smooth out a lot of the sharper sounds that I find uncomfortable, and make it easier to pick out details from a loud environment.

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y1n0 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s pretty terrible. I started losing my hearing in my mid 30s. Best guess is genetics. My loss right now in my early 50s would be termed moderate, not quite severe but it continues to get worse.

Hearing aids have come a long way but all of the ones I’ve used still basically suck when it comes to understanding speech. Part of it, I think, is that my loss isn’t bad enough that fully closed ear pieces are recommended and as such background noise is still free to obfuscate conversation.

It basically makes conversation in anything but a quiet room extremely difficult. My brain works overtime trying to fit possible words to what I hear. Sometimes I fail with pretty humiliating results.

It doesn’t take much before you just stop trying to talk with people. Especially with the younger crowd because they tend to speak the quietest. It varies by individual, but at least older people who’ve had some loss themselves will speak louder to compensate.

The worst is restaurants. Usually I can guess what’s being said by the server, but not always. Accents increase difficulty.

I used to be pretty out going, joked a lot with people. Now I avoid most conversations when I can.

	▲	codedokode 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Could not smart glasses with speech recognition help in such cases?